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Road Worriers
Orange eyes more attractive Post Road to lure business
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Business New Haven
4/16/2001
By: Linda Mele
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ORANGE - To attract and retain commercial tenants to the Boston Post Road, the town must make significant improvements such as landscaping, better lighting, synchronized traffic lights and sidewalks that would connect stores. So says the Ad Hoc Committee to Study the Boston Post Road following an eight-month investigation.
Members of the committee delivered their report to town officials earlier this month. Recommendations include the above improvements as well as suggestions to add sheltered bus stops, implement user-friendly road improvements (the state already plans to widen the entire length of Route 1 in Orange from the West Haven to Milford lines) and require more consistent signage.
According to the committee's chairman, Selectwoman Patricia Pearson, the ten-member group decided that traffic issues and esthetics were top priorities. The biggest priority, however, is to find someone to be the executive director of the Orange Economic Development Corp. (OEDC).
Pearson says that hiring a paid professional who knows about marketing and advertising is at the top of the to-do list.
First Selectman Mitchell Goldblatt adds that the town decided not to renew its contract with former director Elaine Liberti when it expired earlier this year.
“We have also expanded the duties of the director and are actively searching for a new one,” Goldblatt explains, “whose charge will include marketing the Post Road.”
Finding someone who will be as enthusiastic about the town and what its commercial corridor has to offer won't be easy, and changes won't happen overnight, cautions Pearson.
Goldblatt says the new director will report to the OEDC as well as to him. Interviews with job candidates should be concluded by the end of the month, he adds.
“After studying the problem, we also came to the conclusion that we need a more aggressive marketing strategy,” Pearson says.
That strategy will include the development of a marketing packet, Goldblatt says, “that will showcase everything the town has to offer.” That packet could include an updated version of the video the Orange Economic Development Commission commissioned several years ago as well as other marketing materials such as professionally made brochures, Goldblatt says.
Other suggestions are to form a merchant's association and develop business-sponsored events such as “A Taste of Orange” that have been so successful for neighboring towns such as Milford.
Goldblatt says using the town's Web site as a marketing tool is also being examined.
Pearson says that in order to generate marketing momentum, the committee is mulling over marketing options even before a new director has been identified.
“This is a positive step forward,” Goldblatt says, “that gives us a place to start.”
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